Swearing under my breath, I stop and try to figure my options. It’s too late to attempt to hide behind the landing gear of one of the ships on this catwalk—the two numbers are looking right at me. They’re not wearing Amerov uniforms, at least, but that isn’t saying much. Too many of them have a chip on their shoulder for unregistered numbers, and I don’t want to get into yet another fight. ForceZero on Lee’s ship doesn’t seem that far away. My implants in my temple throb.
One number puts his hand on his weapon. The other, a female, just squints. She looks down past me, probably at where Kel is standing, and cocks her head.
Unregistered numbers aren’t exactly rare here, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna like me.
Maybe, just maybe, this situation has nothing to do with me, and Kel doesn’t even know I’m here.
The female pulls a tablet from her pocket, glances at it, and looks back up at me, handing it to her partner. I have my hood up, but I tossed my mask into a gutter. They can probably see me, even in the dim, artificial light of the hangar. I glance down at the stomach-dropping fall below the grates of the catwalk.
The male number nods, and now both of them have their hands on their weapons.
Well then.
Slowly, I turn and attempt to walk away calmly, as if all this has nothing to do with me and I’m just a normal person trying to avoid cyborgs as they so often do.
“Number, stop—”
I bolt down the catwalk, the whole thing quivering horribly at my footfalls. Maybe the other numbers will fall off. Shouldn’t be too hopeful, given the past few months. The forcefields directly below the catwalks would catch them, anyway.
“Bat, they’re definitely after us!” I yell into my comm, skidding to a stop when the three numbers standing alongside Kel spot the commotion and head our way.
Oh, for star’s sake.
Eyeballing the catwalk and my ship below firing to life, slowing rising in my direction, I glance at both options, grimacing.
“This is a terrible idea,” I tell myself, before leaning back against the railing as much as I can.
I launch myself down onto my ship, clearing the catwalk and where the faint shimmer of a forcefield stands under it as protection. My stomach drops, and I’m extra glad Bat doesn’t take this moment to try to steer the vessel in any direction. Landing hard on the wing, I roll and catch myself on the edge, my knee taking this moment to scream at me and my still-healing implants throbbing with the sudden jar of movement. Swearing and mildly pleased with myself, I roll onto my feet and scramble to the top of the ship, only a little dizzy, yanking open the top hatch. Somewhere, someone fires a shot, but I don’t even know where the bullet goes.
“Oh my God, you moron, are you alright?” Yvonne shrieks at me from inside the ship as I drop down and stumble a bit more than usual. My head is killing me.
“Fine, that was normal for me, why do you ask?”
She slaps me weakly on the shoulder as I lean over the control panel where Bat is slowly raising us above the catwalk, avoiding ship traffic, other catwalks, and forcefields. One of the numbers below raises a rifle toward us, and I grab the ship’s gun controls, pointing them in his direction with a glowing blue muzzle.
All three of them scatter back for solid ground.
I snicker darkly.
“Where’s Zane and Lalia?” Anya asks from the co-pilot’s chair, gripping the edges and looking particularly freaked out.
Sighing harshly, I say, “I don’t know.”
Scooping Bat out of the way—ignoring his intense stare—I grab the controls and raise the ship over the others, trying to spot the other two idiots. Even if they don’t want to leave with us, I’ll drop them in a different sector of this city. This hangar is much too dangerous now Kel has dropped some less-than-human authorities into the mix.
Shoulda killed her.
I hover the ship high over the edge of the hanger, squinting out the viewport and trying to get the in my sight. Kel I see just fine, glaring up at us, but the siblings are nowhere to be found.
Tapping my comm on, I say, “Where the hell are you two?”
No answer.
I scowl. I’d like to think I know them enough to believe they’re not so petty as to not answer just because we said some nasty—if true—things to one another. Swearing to myself and ignoring Anya’s scandalized expression, I lower the ship back to one of the other catwalks, trying to get a better read on the area.
“I don’t see them, where are they?” Yvonne asks, face plastered to the port window near the airlock.
“They were on the same level as us.” I try not to consider one of them getting shot, but I can still count Kel and the numbers with her. How long until air reinforcements show up?
Kel glances into the crowd and trots back into it, disappearing into the mess of heat signatures. I let out a long, angry breath as one of the numbers follows her. Wish some of my kind would be disinterested in humanity enough to not listen to the crazy woman. Taking the ship up and setting it down on one of the higher catwalks, I cycle open the airlock, dropping my backpack aside so it doesn’t get in the way and making sure both my guns are on me. No one argues with me, but I can feel Bat glaring at the back of my head. No one here’s gonna stop me from going out and finding the two morons.
“Bat, don’t let any numbers get back near the ship, hover it until we get back. If someone shoots at you, shoot back.”
“Got it—”
The dim muffle of a shot rings out somewhere in the level below. People start scattering. Swearing, I drop out onto the catwalk, trying to keep an eye out for the numbers I scared off with my ship guns, and sprint back for stable land.
“Where the hell are you idiots?” I yell into the comm, trying to get a connection.
“Aaron?” Lalia’s voice finally fuzzes in.
“What the hell!”
“Your call didn’t come through, what’s going on?”
“Who shot at who?”
“Hell if I know, we’re heading up to you.”
Well, at least they’re not dead. Or hurt. I ignore the relief easing the tightness in my chest. Would’ve been a little more helpful if they’d just followed me up. They wouldn’t’ve been able to make that jump I did, but at least I’d have eyes on them.
One of the bigger vessels moored on the catwalk below fires to life, their guns humming bright red, and several men run out into the commotion. Who the hell are they? Maybe Kel was after someone else and we stumbled across it. Seems a little too lucky—or unlucky—but whoever these people are, if they’re involving themselves, it’s better than us being the full targets.
“A different ship’s crew is getting involved,” I say into my comm. “I don’t know what they’re up to but I don’t recognize them, keep an eye out.”
“We see them,” Lalia says.
I slow to a jog, trying to take stock of the situation before I go running into the crowd, but the catwalk shivers, the thin metal sheets of walkways jutting out into the expanse of air, warping and nearly throwing me off. Something pops with an electric buzzing. One of the shields? I grab onto the railing, grateful Yvonne didn’t try to follow me. She wouldn’t’ve had such an easy time of it. Below, one of the men crashes and nearly takes a dive off the edge before his buddy grabs the back of his jacket.
What the hell is going on?
Shouting echoes over the general commotion of people scrambling to get out of the firefight. Squinting into the crowd, I catch sight of one of the bigger cyborgs in some sort of argument with a human, both of them with guns out, the cyborg waving an arm. Kel is behind him, but she’s edging around, expression alarmed, trying to get out of his sight even when he isn’t directly speaking to her.
Something is wrong with that number. My stomach churns. He’s definitely registered, but the last thing we need right now is some big cyborg with firepower having a terrible reaction to his chip. It would happen when we’re around by our luck, but at least he’s focused on someone else.
Except that Kel, in her hurry to get away from the situation, spots me.
It probably isn’t wise, but she’s seen me already, and it isn’t as if I can make her like me less—I make a rather rude gesture she can definitely see all the way down there.
Picking my pace back up, I head for the siblings taking some of the stairs up to this level when something snaps with the telltale shriek of thick metal strained too far. I pause, unsure I should be running on this thing. Some smaller hovercraft zip in through the nearest tunnel in the city levels—well, there’s the air reinforcements. Typical.
The bigger ship below us spins toward them, but it’s still tethered by a fuel line to the catwalk below. They’re supposed to detach if a ship pulls away for some reason. It doesn’t.
All the catwalks are connected by cables and the general structure of the city. There’s another twang of snapping metal that kills my ears, and the catwalk behind me twists.
“Shit,” I mutter, taking off back to solid land, unsafe running be damned. Beneath my feet, the catwalk yanks wildly, throwing me forward as I’m reaching the city floor, and I roll onto the solid platform so I don’t smash my face into the ground.
“You okay?” Yvonne asks into my comm.
“Fantastic,” I mutter, rolling my shoulder and getting as far from the edge as I can in this cramped platform. Several people bump into me, and I’m about to yell rather loudly into my comm at the siblings before I catch Lalia’s head of tangled hair through the throng, Zane close behind.
Another gunshot goes off far below, and a series of sirens from the small, flat little red hovercraft. I put my hand on my gun, but I don’t think anyone’s firing at us. Yet.
“Is she after someone else?” Zane asks as the two of them finally get to me through all the people, too many of whom are gawking at the situation rather than running.
“I don’t know,” I say, but I can’t get an eye on Kel from here. Well enough, it probably means she can’t see us.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
Zane shakes his head, expression tight. We’re all avoiding eye contact, but can deal with that later once we’re not all dead.
“Hey Bat, can you find us? We’re on the platform the catwalk was leading to. Careful, I don’t know what else is gonna break free—”
Our platform shudders. Zane and Lalia and I exchange glances before I yell, “Everyone off!”
The wider crowd doesn’t appear to be listening, but I shove at the siblings, moving them as far from the edge as I can get them, the three of us trying to shove our way deeper into the edge of the city. At least everyone starts getting the picture and heading inward. The platform bows, something snapping far below. A human slams into me, knocking himself to the ground, before scrambling up and away. I pause enough to try to get a look over all the people and ships in the hangar for our little vessel. The sooner we get back on and off this platform, the better—
A shot bounces off one of the cables near my head. Lalia yelps and I duck, drawing my gun in the direction it’s coming from, but I can’t see through all the blobs of heat. Off somewhere in the crowd, there’s a cry of pain as someone takes the bullet that went wild around us. Someone shot into all these people trying to hit us. Even I don’t have that much faith in my aim, and I’m a better shot. Among the running humans, I spot someone scrambling back to their feet, limping away with a shock of red on their leg. At least it didn’t kill them.
A series of screams has my ears crackling, Zane tries to say something to me, and the platform beneath our feet snaps.
Swearing under my breath, I stop and try to figure my options. It’s too late to attempt to hide behind the landing gear of one of the ships on this catwalk—the two numbers are looking right at me. They’re not wearing Amerov uniforms, at least, but that isn’t saying much. Too many of them have a chip on their shoulder for unregistered numbers, and I don’t want to get into yet another fight. ForceZero on Lee’s ship doesn’t seem that far away. My implants in my temple throb.
One number puts his hand on his weapon. The other, a female, just squints. She looks down past me, probably at where Kel is standing, and cocks her head.
Unregistered numbers aren’t exactly rare here, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna like me.
Maybe, just maybe, this situation has nothing to do with me, and Kel doesn’t even know I’m here.
The female pulls a tablet from her pocket, glances at it, and looks back up at me, handing it to her partner. I have my hood up, but I tossed my mask into a gutter. They can probably see me, even in the dim, artificial light of the hangar. I glance down at the stomach-dropping fall below the grates of the catwalk.
The male number nods, and now both of them have their hands on their weapons.
Well then.
Slowly, I turn and attempt to walk away calmly, as if all this has nothing to do with me and I’m just a normal person trying to avoid cyborgs as they so often do.
“Number, stop—”
I bolt down the catwalk, the whole thing quivering horribly at my footfalls. Maybe the other numbers will fall off. Shouldn’t be too hopeful, given the past few months. The forcefields directly below the catwalks would catch them, anyway.
“Bat, they’re definitely after us!” I yell into my comm, skidding to a stop when the three numbers standing alongside Kel spot the commotion and head our way.
Oh, for star’s sake.
Eyeballing the catwalk and my ship below firing to life, slowing rising in my direction, I glance at both options, grimacing.
“This is a terrible idea,” I tell myself, before leaning back against the railing as much as I can.
I launch myself down onto my ship, clearing the catwalk and where the faint shimmer of a forcefield stands under it as protection. My stomach drops, and I’m extra glad Bat doesn’t take this moment to try to steer the vessel in any direction. Landing hard on the wing, I roll and catch myself on the edge, my knee taking this moment to scream at me and my still-healing implants throbbing with the sudden jar of movement. Swearing and mildly pleased with myself, I roll onto my feet and scramble to the top of the ship, only a little dizzy, yanking open the top hatch. Somewhere, someone fires a shot, but I don’t even know where the bullet goes.
“Oh my God, you moron, are you alright?” Yvonne shrieks at me from inside the ship as I drop down and stumble a bit more than usual. My head is killing me.
“Fine, that was normal for me, why do you ask?”
She slaps me weakly on the shoulder as I lean over the control panel where Bat is slowly raising us above the catwalk, avoiding ship traffic, other catwalks, and forcefields. One of the numbers below raises a rifle toward us, and I grab the ship’s gun controls, pointing them in his direction with a glowing blue muzzle.
All three of them scatter back for solid ground.
I snicker darkly.
“Where’s Zane and Lalia?” Anya asks from the co-pilot’s chair, gripping the edges and looking particularly freaked out.
Sighing harshly, I say, “I don’t know.”
Scooping Bat out of the way—ignoring his intense stare—I grab the controls and raise the ship over the others, trying to spot the other two idiots. Even if they don’t want to leave with us, I’ll drop them in a different sector of this city. This hangar is much too dangerous now Kel has dropped some less-than-human authorities into the mix.
Shoulda killed her.
I hover the ship high over the edge of the hanger, squinting out the viewport and trying to get the in my sight. Kel I see just fine, glaring up at us, but the siblings are nowhere to be found.
Tapping my comm on, I say, “Where the hell are you two?”
No answer.
I scowl. I’d like to think I know them enough to believe they’re not so petty as to not answer just because we said some nasty—if true—things to one another. Swearing to myself and ignoring Anya’s scandalized expression, I lower the ship back to one of the other catwalks, trying to get a better read on the area.
“I don’t see them, where are they?” Yvonne asks, face plastered to the port window near the airlock.
“They were on the same level as us.” I try not to consider one of them getting shot, but I can still count Kel and the numbers with her. How long until air reinforcements show up?
Kel glances into the crowd and trots back into it, disappearing into the mess of heat signatures. I let out a long, angry breath as one of the numbers follows her. Wish some of my kind would be disinterested in humanity enough to not listen to the crazy woman. Taking the ship up and setting it down on one of the higher catwalks, I cycle open the airlock, dropping my backpack aside so it doesn’t get in the way and making sure both my guns are on me. No one argues with me, but I can feel Bat glaring at the back of my head. No one here’s gonna stop me from going out and finding the two morons.
“Bat, don’t let any numbers get back near the ship, hover it until we get back. If someone shoots at you, shoot back.”
“Got it—”
The dim muffle of a shot rings out somewhere in the level below. People start scattering. Swearing, I drop out onto the catwalk, trying to keep an eye out for the numbers I scared off with my ship guns, and sprint back for stable land.
“Where the hell are you idiots?” I yell into the comm, trying to get a connection.
“Aaron?” Lalia’s voice finally fuzzes in.
“What the hell!”
“Your call didn’t come through, what’s going on?”
“Who shot at who?”
“Hell if I know, we’re heading up to you.”
Well, at least they’re not dead. Or hurt. I ignore the relief easing the tightness in my chest. Would’ve been a little more helpful if they’d just followed me up. They wouldn’t’ve been able to make that jump I did, but at least I’d have eyes on them.
One of the bigger vessels moored on the catwalk below fires to life, their guns humming bright red, and several men run out into the commotion. Who the hell are they? Maybe Kel was after someone else and we stumbled across it. Seems a little too lucky—or unlucky—but whoever these people are, if they’re involving themselves, it’s better than us being the full targets.
“A different ship’s crew is getting involved,” I say into my comm. “I don’t know what they’re up to but I don’t recognize them, keep an eye out.”
“We see them,” Lalia says.
I slow to a jog, trying to take stock of the situation before I go running into the crowd, but the catwalk shivers, the thin metal sheets of walkways jutting out into the expanse of air, warping and nearly throwing me off. Something pops with an electric buzzing. One of the shields? I grab onto the railing, grateful Yvonne didn’t try to follow me. She wouldn’t’ve had such an easy time of it. Below, one of the men crashes and nearly takes a dive off the edge before his buddy grabs the back of his jacket.
What the hell is going on?
Shouting echoes over the general commotion of people scrambling to get out of the firefight. Squinting into the crowd, I catch sight of one of the bigger cyborgs in some sort of argument with a human, both of them with guns out, the cyborg waving an arm. Kel is behind him, but she’s edging around, expression alarmed, trying to get out of his sight even when he isn’t directly speaking to her.
Something is wrong with that number. My stomach churns. He’s definitely registered, but the last thing we need right now is some big cyborg with firepower having a terrible reaction to his chip. It would happen when we’re around by our luck, but at least he’s focused on someone else.
Except that Kel, in her hurry to get away from the situation, spots me.
It probably isn’t wise, but she’s seen me already, and it isn’t as if I can make her like me less—I make a rather rude gesture she can definitely see all the way down there.
Picking my pace back up, I head for the siblings taking some of the stairs up to this level when something snaps with the telltale shriek of thick metal strained too far. I pause, unsure I should be running on this thing. Some smaller hovercraft zip in through the nearest tunnel in the city levels—well, there’s the air reinforcements. Typical.
The bigger ship below us spins toward them, but it’s still tethered by a fuel line to the catwalk below. They’re supposed to detach if a ship pulls away for some reason. It doesn’t.
All the catwalks are connected by cables and the general structure of the city. There’s another twang of snapping metal that kills my ears, and the catwalk behind me twists.
“Shit,” I mutter, taking off back to solid land, unsafe running be damned. Beneath my feet, the catwalk yanks wildly, throwing me forward as I’m reaching the city floor, and I roll onto the solid platform so I don’t smash my face into the ground.
“You okay?” Yvonne asks into my comm.
“Fantastic,” I mutter, rolling my shoulder and getting as far from the edge as I can in this cramped platform. Several people bump into me, and I’m about to yell rather loudly into my comm at the siblings before I catch Lalia’s head of tangled hair through the throng, Zane close behind.
Another gunshot goes off far below, and a series of sirens from the small, flat little red hovercraft. I put my hand on my gun, but I don’t think anyone’s firing at us. Yet.
“Is she after someone else?” Zane asks as the two of them finally get to me through all the people, too many of whom are gawking at the situation rather than running.
“I don’t know,” I say, but I can’t get an eye on Kel from here. Well enough, it probably means she can’t see us.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
Zane shakes his head, expression tight. We’re all avoiding eye contact, but can deal with that later once we’re not all dead.
“Hey Bat, can you find us? We’re on the platform the catwalk was leading to. Careful, I don’t know what else is gonna break free—”
Our platform shudders. Zane and Lalia and I exchange glances before I yell, “Everyone off!”
The wider crowd doesn’t appear to be listening, but I shove at the siblings, moving them as far from the edge as I can get them, the three of us trying to shove our way deeper into the edge of the city. At least everyone starts getting the picture and heading inward. The platform bows, something snapping far below. A human slams into me, knocking himself to the ground, before scrambling up and away. I pause enough to try to get a look over all the people and ships in the hangar for our little vessel. The sooner we get back on and off this platform, the better—
A shot bounces off one of the cables near my head. Lalia yelps and I duck, drawing my gun in the direction it’s coming from, but I can’t see through all the blobs of heat. Off somewhere in the crowd, there’s a cry of pain as someone takes the bullet that went wild around us. Someone shot into all these people trying to hit us. Even I don’t have that much faith in my aim, and I’m a better shot. Among the running humans, I spot someone scrambling back to their feet, limping away with a shock of red on their leg. At least it didn’t kill them.
A series of screams has my ears crackling, Zane tries to say something to me, and the platform beneath our feet snaps.
